I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.
Thanks to Shinkicker for editing!
Chapter published 8/18/15.
Sara
After a few minutes of leaning back in the chair, she peeled her hands off her face and let out a long, drawn out groan.
A faceless one. I have the magic of the faceless ones. Damn it.
Now what?
She stared at the books and papers and felt ill. How could it even be possible? Sure, it explained a lot of the... nuances of her powers, but how? Her parents weren't Twilight Cultists, she'd read their minds - Sorry Mom and Dad - and knew it wasn't the case. What in the world could give her the powers of the damnable Faceless?
Calm down, she told herself. This doesn't change anything.
Her plan was a remarkable success though, she couldn't argue. She hadn't gone extremely in depth with research yet, but she knew that the topic of the Old Gods was poorly researched for... obvious reasons. She could research them. She could find out more about them and, in doing so, find out more about her powers. But how? Moreover, how could she do it safely? The magic of the Old Gods was infamous for being unimaginably corruptive.
But then why wasn't her magic corruptive? She wasn't corrupted. The animals she resurrected weren't corrupted. The people she read and changed weren't corrupted.
Maybe she'd have to put deliberate, corruptive intent into it. The other possibility was that she, having the magic naturally, was immune to the corruption. That didn't make sense though, otherwise everyone else wouldn't be immune. Maybe it was both. It sounded like something worth researching.
She grabbed a pencil from a nearby container - the library was filled with them - and copied down the faceless one's magical signature. She tucked that away into a pocket, then closed the books and put them back in their shelves. She grabbed the papers containing her own signature and stashed them away, then sat back down and sighed, thinking to herself.
First things first, she needed to find something to research about the Old Gods. That'd be easy, no doubt, since there was nearly nothing known about them, however she'd need to be absurdly specific; this was her Archmage thesis after all. After that she would need to present it to the Archmagister Board and get approval for enough funding, and unless she cobbled together something she could do entirely on her own, unlikely, Sara would then have to go find volunteers to go investigating the nature of the Old Gods.
The Archmages know about my magic, she realized.
How could she have been so stupid? Of course her magical signature was confidential, she had the magic of the damned faceless. And the Archmages knew. Why hadn't they done anything with the information? Nobody fully knew what the faceless were capable of, so her wielding their magic without knowing what it was could do great harm...
What if they have done something and I don't know it?! she thought, slowly working herself into a panic. What if they'd been expecting her to warp someone's mind to get her signature? What if - she looked around at everyone else using the library, the claustrophobic underground library - what if they had sent people to spy on her, or worse?!
Calm down, Sara. Calm down. Get a grip!
They had nothing they could do against her. They were unable to prove she'd done anything illegal, and if she made a good enough case, she could get funding for her research anyway, from outside sources if she had to. For certain, there would always be rich people she could suddenly befriend. That was a last resort though. She could do this. She would do this. She just had to be smart about it.
First things first, she had to figure out what actually was known about the Old Gods so she wouldn't accidentally just tread old ground. She went to the shelves and began perusing for anything related to the topic of Old Gods. She found a history book on Azeroth's early history, which wouldn't contain too much in the way of magical knowledge, but better safe than sorry. There was a thin book detailing what was known about the faceless beneath Northrend, and another one listing effects of Old God corruption.
She went back to her table with all three books and sat, opening the first one. She read through it, going over the archaeological research that had been found. The Mantid, Nerubians, and Qiraji all had a progenitor species in the extinct 'Aqir', who had survived the Ordering of Azeroth and were only defeated by the trolls, some six thousand years before the War of the Ancients. Nothing useful. There were also records of the fates befalling all known Old Gods, which also wasn't of use.
The next book was far more useful, and in it were descriptions of powers displayed by the faceless. It was almost universally shadow magic - there were exceptions, such as General Vezax employing fire magic - that was described as being 'sticky'. Another feature that Sara's magic had recently started to display. Every spell she cast left a residue in the area affected, like fog, until dissipated. Though it hadn't always done so, so maybe her magic would become corruptive with time?
The final book listed effects of the Old God's magic that had been noted. Everything from the forced evolution of the Aqir to the destruction of the failed World Tree in Northrend could be traced to them, and they'd even played a crucial role in the Shattering. Sara began making connections with what she'd learned about demons and fel magic in the past few years; Old God corruption seemed to do anything demonic corruption did, but much more pervasively. People had come back from being corrupted by demons, but Sara didn't think there was any record of the same happening with Old Gods.
She flipped through the books and devoted as much of them to her incredibly memory as she could, then placed them back in their shelves, gathered her belongings, and booked it out of the too-far-underground library.
Sara took a deep breath of the fresh air once she was outside, then half-ran back to her living area. Everywhere she looked, she was certain people were looking at her. They know, she thought. They have to know. It's so obvious. Faceless magic explains everything. They have to know, they have to have figured it out...
Sara slammed the door behind her as she slipped into her apartment, gasping for breath. Okay, she was safe, nobody was coming for her, and if they were she could blast a hole through their chest. Everything was going to be fine.
She went to her desk and pulled out a few pencils and sheets of paper, then went to writing down everything she had managed to memorize from the books. Her memory wasn't quite photographic, and while she could pick things up quickly it wasn't a guarantee she would remember it long, so she had to write down everything right away. The less chance there was of someone being suspicious about her reading books on the Old Gods, the better. It took a few hours for her to jot it all down and her wrist burned by the end, but she finished in a timely manner.
There was a lot of time until exhaustion claimed her, so Sara spent the rest of the day brainstorming various research topics centered on the Old Gods. She wrote up a few drafts, then crumpled them up and tossed them over her back. Outside, the sun crashed under the horizon and stars speckled the sky, but she didn't stop working. It wasn't until long after midnight that Sara decided to stop writing, because she had work the next day. So she crawled into her bed and passed out, having dreams of tentacles bursting from the ground and dancing around her.
A week passed, and then another.
In that time Sara continued to create her research proposal, looked up how much funding she'd need, checked in on some of the upper class to mind control. She also got a few letters from her parents, mostly about the dreadfully dull gossip of Greenvale. But she didn't want to hurt their feelings, so in her return letters she pretended to care at least a little.
It was on the second week after discovering her faceless magic that Sara finished her research proposal. She'd thought ahead and made an appointment to have her proposal looked at, so she finished stacking up the papers. She wouldn't actually stand in front of the board, she'd simply have to drop it off and then wait for them to do the rest.
The abstract read about how the Old Gods had always menaced Azeroth and, until the final one was destroyed, perhaps always would. She also related to how it was discovered the destruction of all five Old Gods would annihilate all life on the planet, so the only logical conclusion was, before the Kingslayers found and destroyed the last of the five Old Gods, to find a way to reverse the spell they had cast on Azeroth.
The stack of papers then went on to highlight a detailed description of her planned experiment, which involved taking the magical signature of the Old Gods, mechanisms to reverse engineer the spell they had cast, and a variety of other things. The total cost, including travel and provisions, was about a hundred thousand gold. Sara had about eighty gold to her name; her job didn't pay that well. If she wanted even to get the trip to Silithus and C'Thun payed for, she was going to need a lot of funding.
But for the time being, all she could do was hand in her proposal to the Wizard Sanctum's mailbox and wait. She decided that, if she were to be idle for the next few days waiting for approval or denial, or people breaking into her home trying to kill her, she might as well let off some steam.
Sara made her way out of the Mage Quarter and walked along the Canals. Stormwind was crowded at that time of the day, so she had to push past the throngs of people in order to get to the Trade District, and from there to the autumn colors of Old Town. The smell of aged wine and history drifted into her nose, and she exhaled sharply to clear her senses and headed towards the training grounds. The crowds thinned as she approached, while the number of armored guards standing at attention increased.
The training grounds were open to the public, and the training dummies provided by the Academy weren't sufficient for Sara. They shattered too easily. These however, these were heavy-duty. The same brand the Kingslayers used. These training dummies could handle her wrath. Mostly.
Entering the tall, white-brick building, Sara turned a few corridors and passed a few doors. From the doors the sound of clashing steel and wood resounded, but she kept going until she found one that seemed to be empty. Placing her hands against the heavy wooden doors, she pushed them in. Inside was a circular room of white stone, with singed banners of the Alliance's lion-head plastering the walls. All around her were dummies of wood and straw, holding a mock sword and shield.
Once in the middle of the room, Sara reached behind her back and stretched her arms. Then she drew up her magic, and began.
Right away, she brought a glowing-purple hand to her chest and thrust it out to the left. A surge of unrefined shadow magic washed outwards with cataclysmic force, scouring dust and germs from the stone and colliding with the training dummy like a battering ram. It bent backwards, but refixed itself quickly. In that time, Sara turned to her right and held out both hands, unleashing another unfocused blast. That one caught three of the dummies, blasting away their magically-reinforced straw and sending them spinning wildly.
Sara tried to let her mind go blank as she kept unleashing her power. Boom! One of the training dummies snapped in half from a thin ray of magic. Boom! She sent dust flying from a blast that left a dummy headless. Huge amounts of magic coiled along her arms, turning sickly green and hurting her with its sheer magnitude. But as hard as she tried, her thoughts raced.
A faceless one! She had the magic of eldritch abominations from before the Ordering of Azeroth!
Boom! Each hand let out a blast, each of which left a dummy without its sword arm.
And she hadn't even known it! For years, she'd been using some of the darkest magic known to the Alliance, throwing it around like Hallow's End candy!
Boom! She brought both her arms together and raised them up over her head. Sara suddenly shot them outward, completely obliterating a dummy and leaving the adjacent ones half disintegrated.
And she wasn't the only one who knew. She was trying to convince the Archmages, who knew what she could do, to let her get within arm's length of an Old God! It was never going to work! They were going to decline her - best case scenario - and then she'd be stuck as a Magister for the rest of her life, going nowhere!
Sara curled over and, with a scream, stood and flung her arms out. The intensely bright green magic along her body flared outwards, turning into a violet shadow nova as it did and reducing the remaining training dummies to piles of straw.
With that done, Sara fell to the ground and moaned in pain, clutching her burning limbs amidst swirling, clinging darkness. "Damn it," she whispered. She'd forgotten to bring a staff with her, so she'd overchanneled. It'd pass in a few minutes, and if she didn't repeatedly overchannel she wouldn't suffer the long term effects, but damn it it hurt!
"Holy shit!" came an astonished whisper from behind her. Immediately Sara got to her feet and spun around, holding a magic-engulfed arm at the intruder. Maria immediately backed up and held up her hands in surrender. "Whoa whoa, easy there! I was just watching, honest!"
"Ha!" came a little voice, prompting Sara to look down and to the right. "Sure ya were! Just watching, you were staring like a fish outta water! Never seen magic before, mistress?" a little smoldering imp jeered.
Sara immediately pointed a finger at it and zapped it with a thin ray of shadow magic. The demon yelped and phased into transparency, blowing a raspberry at her. "Keep your pet leashed, Maria," she scowled. "Now what were you doing here?"
"Despite what Rulpit says I really was just watching. You've got a lot of magic you know that?" Maria stuck her head into the room and looked around, whistling. She waved a hand to try and blow away the sticky shadows in the room. "Wow, I do not envy the clean up team's jobs - whoa!"
In that time Sara had pulled Maria in, closed the door, and then slammed her against the bricks with a tether of her faceless magic. It extended out from one of her palms in a single beam, then divided in two at Maria's neck to pin her to the wall. "You've got ten seconds to tell me what you were really doing here," she scowled, secretly flooding Maria's mind with magic in order to see whether or not she'd lie.
"I saw you coming this way and I thought I'd catch up! I haven't seen you in a while so I was curious!" No lying. Sara let go of her magic and Maria brought a hand to her neck, massaging it. "Holy shit Sara, what is wrong with you?"
Idea!
Sara stumbled back, making a show of pinching her brow. "Sorry, sorry. I've been stressing out lately. Just submitted my research proposal for the Archmage title."
Maria nodded. "Yeah well, try not to decapitate me, yeah?" She got off the wall and chuckled. "So, what're you researching?"
Sara quirked a brow, looking at her sideways. "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm just curious, I was just wondering what you'd go for."
"Well, just between you and me, I've made the decision to research the Old Gods and their magic."
Maria's eyes bugged out comically and her little imp raised an eyebrow. "Wait, what?! Sara, what in the world would drive you to do that?"
"Well think about it!" she said. "All of the Old Gods that died in recent memory are because of the Kingslayers. C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, the remnants of Y'Shaarj, and N'Zoth. Tell me, what happens if they screw up? Like, there's one more Old God out there somewhere. What happens if they go to it, and get smacked down like flies, huh? It's a terrible idea to put all our eggs in one basket like that!"
"I don't know Sara, the Liberality Confederacy's got a pretty good track record when it comes to dealing with unstoppable horrors." She held up a hand and began counting off fingers. "Hakkar, the Old Gods you mentioned, the Lich King, Deathwing, Kil'jaeden..."
"Yeah yeah," Sara said. "Still a terrible idea. And second, how many of the Old Gods do you think are really dead? When the Titans killed Y'Shaarj, it was at least another sixty thousand years before the Sha disappeared, and they didn't exactly go away on their own. If the Titans couldn't just put down an Old God like that, we're supposed to believe the Liberality Confederacy can? Can you imagine what's gonna bubble up from the Maelstrom in a few decades from now? Or from Silithus, or Northrend? We need to get ahead of the game!"
Maria went to open her mouth, but Sara was on a roll with convincing her. "And it's been harder each time. C'Thun didn't get a tentacle out of Ahn'Qiraj. Yogg-Saron took them the aid of Titan Watchers and it was a close thing. The Sha took months of trekking across Pandaria, and the war with N'Zoth and its naga took years! Tell me, do you honestly believe that when this fifth Old God comes crawling out of the woodwork that we can afford to just, just point the Kingslayers at it - if they're even still around by then - and say 'Deal with it'?"
The warlock was silent for a few minutes, a finger on her chin as she thought it over. "Huh, makes sense," she muttered. "So what're you planning to do?"
"I can't give you any details. For one thing I'm still waiting for funding, and two there's a prohibition against telling uninvolved people any technical details until the paper's published, some dumb plagiarism nonsense, but step one is to head to Silithus and get some accurate readings of C'Thun's magic. See what's going on with the leylines around Ahn'Qiraj, how far its magic spills from its body, that sort of thing."
Maria frowned. "Isn't that dangerous? Like, fingers turning into tentacles dangerous?"
"Like I said, I can't give you details but I have taken safety precautions." She glowered at the shorter woman. "I spent a lot of time on this, Maria. Listen, I need to go, but if you're interested - and I get funding - there'll be posters for people to sign up for the trip. Hey, 'I spent months poking around the remains of Yogg-Saron and lived to tell the tale' looks good on your résumé." Sara winked, and Maria giggled. "Check around in a few days, I should have the answer by then."
"Right. So where're you going?"
Sara shrugged. "Don't know yet. Yesterday I took a walk in the Park, so that's out. I'll figure something out. I'll track you down if I hear back."
She heard back.
Of course she didn't track down Maria, because she didn't care about her much at all. The important thing was that, against all of Sara's worries and paranoia, the council had approved her research proposal and had given her a grant of... seventy five thousand gold, citing that certain things she desired were impractical. Of course they were impractical, they were part of her own secret research to figure out why she had faceless magic.
Did they know, and that was why they didn't give her the funding? Were they content to just dangle her away from the secret with financial means?
You're being paranoid again, she told herself. They have no way of knowing you know. Any inferences they make on their part are pure speculation, because I've been very careful to hide that I know about what I can do.
At least she could move forward. No more free time, from here on out she was busy 24/7. She wrote a letter to her parents letting them know she was going to be busy, and another letter to Leira's guild asking them to tell her when she returned. Then, she was busy busy busy!
First thing she needed was people helping her, because on her own this would be a monumental task to perform. So she went to an artist and commissioned - for an, ahem, generously low price - pictures. Said picture was of an alliance soldier facing a Prime Sha. In one hand he held a sword, and in the other a Noblegarden basket with a hole in it. Through said hole fell out an egg with 'Liberality Confederacy' written on it. Below the soldier were the words: DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET! Those words were followed by information on Sara's expedition and where to get more information. She had several of those posters made and plastered all around the Mage Quarter, and while there weren't a lot of people who were eager to go poking around the corpses of Old Gods, she got enough people signing up to help her. Including Maria.
Silithus was on the other side of the planet. Portals would help, but moving so many items through a portal was... risky, not to mention expensive. As a result, Sara needed a boat to Rut'theran Village, and from there to the rebuilt Auberdine. From there it'd be a long trip by air to Cenarion Hold. From there, a trudge across the desert to Ahn'Qiraj. There they'd have to show the Cenarion druids keeping watch over the city their authorization so they could go in. Then the long trip to the grave of C'Thun - underground, eugh - with long measurements to be taken, then the return trip, provisions, the Maelstrom for N'Zoth, Pandaria, Ulduar, analyzing all the data once she got back...
Sara's head hurt. Why couldn't they just wing it?
To make matters worse, she was still short twenty five thousand gold, so she wouldn't be able to get her hands on the instruments needed to research her own magic. Without that she'd at least be able to perform her basic research into becoming an Archmage, but that wasn't at the forefront of her mind. She wanted to know why she had the magic she did, and she wanted to know right away!
Ugh. Worrying herself would do no good. She needed to go home and lay down. Ever since getting her research approved it was work, work, and more work. Not that she'd expected any different but for goodness sake! She couldn't go out on walks, she couldn't spar, she couldn't practice her magic, she couldn't do anything except fill out forms, drink coffee, listen to people whispering behind her back about 'that crazy warlock going to go poking gods', talk to people coming onto the voyage, again and again and again! It'd all be worth it once she had the answers to her magic and the power of an Archmage but the workload made her want to just go out onto the street and start KILLING EVERYONE!
She paused from walking back to her apartment and leaned against a building. Calm. She was calm.
It was late afternoon by the time Sara got back to the apartment complex. She checked through the mail and raised an eyebrow at having received a letter. She wasn't expecting a letter. It was addressed to her from the Kingslayers, so that was... certainly unexpected.
A few minutes later she was inside her apartment suite, door locked behind her. Sara lay down on her bed and held the letter up with one hand. With the other hand she sliced it open with shadow magic so the letter would fall out, obliterated the envelope, and took the letter in one hand. Another one fell out behind it. Two letters? Sara grunted and began reading the first one.
Dear Ms. Sara Smithers,
We here at the Liberality Confederacy make it our business to know as many going-ons as possible in Azeroth and beyond. To that end your expedition to the bodies of Azeroth's four known Old Gods has not gone unnoticed and, to be frank, we approve. We share your concerns regarding Azeroth's final Old God, and were we less busy we would take a more direct approach in aiding you with your research. Unfortunately, duty calls and while we are obligated not to tell you why we are so busy due to secrecy, we can lend you aid indirectly. Alongside this letter is a bank note for our guild bank, authorizing you to withdraw ten thousand gold for the purposes of your experiment so that you may take better readings. We wish you the best of luck with your research, and hope that we may all benefit from it.
Sincerely,
Torig Stormhoof, Liberality Confederacy Accountant
Sara blinked, tossed the letter to the side, and picked up the other. Sure enough, there it was. A check for ten thousand gold and a smile on her face. Then she frowned. It was a lot, but it wasn't enough. She was still fifteen thousand short of the equipment she'd need to analyze herself.
"Damn it all," she muttered. Unless she got even more funding from some mysterious source, she was... going to have to wait. She hated waiting.
Oh well. She'd done all she could do for the day, and there was nothing more she could do unless she got some rest. Sara stood from her bed and tucked both the letter and bank note away safely, locking them in a drawer. She went to the washroom and brushed her teeth, bathed quickly, then put on a long, dull green sleeping gown. Sara got into her bed, sleeping above the covers, and quickly passed out, ready to awaken next morning and continue the preparations for next week's departure.
And then -
There was something pressed to her throat and she was being shaken awake. Sara's eyes snapped open and she stared up at a leering, masked face. Her first instinct was to open her mouth, but one of his hands were clamped over her mouth, and the other - her eyes glanced down - was holding a knife to her throat. There was something like a vice crushing her soul, strangling her magic almost too much for her to use it.
"If I so much as see a glimmer of magic," the man whispered in a dark voice. "You die. I'm going to take my hand off your mouth now, and you'll stay quiet. Get me?"
Sara nodded, bringing tears to her eyes. He took the hand off, using it to steady the blade at her neck. "P-Please, don't hurt me," she whimpered pitifully.
"That might not be necessary. Now, let me explain things to you. Your little adventure in planning hasn't gone unnoticed. I represent a certain group keenly interested in your expedition. So keenly, that you're going to fire some of your apprentices in favor of our own men coming along. You won't say a word to anyone. You'll make them out to be incompetent, or find some other manner. Fail to do so and, well... you see how easy it was for me to get to you."
"Okay, okay," she whispered, tears moving down her cheeks. "I'll do it, just don't k-kill me," Sara stammered.
"I'm glad we've come to an agreement. Don't worry about hiring the wrong people, they'll introduce themselves to you." He put the knife away and began to leave.
You've just made the biggest mistake of your life, she thought.
Sara put out the quiver in her voice and her eyes dried. Once he was two yards away she sat up in her bed and pointed a hand at him, calling up her magic. It was like squeezing through a door shut almost too tight, and it hurt forcing so much magic through her body, but a brilliant green light shone at the end of her hand regardless.
The intruder noticed the illumination and turned around, eyes wide through his ski mask. "How are you - " That was the last thing he said, because a thick green laser, with darker emerald lightning flashing around it, exploded from Sara and struck him center mass. His knife clattered to the ground moments before his body landed with a thud. From his pocket came a little ring. It was a magic suppressor, made of iron and made brittle by hundreds of overlapping purple runes.
She swung out of bed and wiped her crocodile tears away, before smashing the anti-magic device underfoot with a satisfying crunch. Sara sauntered over to the corpse, tisking all the way. She wanted answers, and she was going to get them. First things first though, she reached her magic into his brain. The violet lines were still visible, but no pulses went through them. That wouldn't stop her from mani -
Knock knock knock! Sara jumped, and then a man's voice sounded in. "Hey Sara, everything okay in there? I heard you fall out, you okay?"
"I'm fine!" she shouted at her suite-mate. "Go away!"
There was a pause. "Alright, alright, I see." Footsteps, and he was gone.
... from manipulating his thoughts. She reached for the brain stem and with a few snips paralyzed him. Then she severed his vocal cords. Now that those were done, she picked up his knife. It was a fancy knife. Golden hilt, engraved with lions and eagles, shining metal. She was going to keep it, so she put it on her desk and walked over to her closet. She fetched out a jeweled staff. It wasn't a fancy one by any means. Basic wooden shaft, and a blue channeling crystal on the end to keep the strain of magic off her body. With the staff in her right hand, she stood over the man.
He was on his back. The first thing Sara did was take the mask off, revealing a handsome man in his early thirties with grayish hair, tan skin, and well defined features.
"Well," she whispered. "No time like the present." Necrotic green energies shivered along her body, flickering in and around her staff. She reached into the man who's life she'd extinguished like a candle and searched. His soul hadn't gotten far, so she grabbed onto it and began dragging it back against what seemed like a current of water. Viridian light flowed off his body as Sara shoved it back into his corpse and, with a shock of magic, restarted his bodily functions.
She sagged and held onto the staff like a crutch as he sputtered to life. She'd never actually brought a person back to life before, and it was like getting kicked in the chest. Sara took a few minutes to get her breath back, then tossed her staff onto her bed and glowered at him.
"I don't know what you were thinking," she told the panicked grey eyes. "To suppress my level of magic you need a field generator made of cobalt, not steel, and you should've knocked me out just in case. But oh well. Now you're here. With me. And my magic's both paralyzed you and rendered you mute." Her voice turned sweet. "Now, friend, I'm going to give you back your voice, but in case you're thinking about shouting try and remember who's the intruder here and who's..." She sniffled. "The poor young woman, assaulted in her sleep, who defended herself against the scary, creepy man who held a knife to her throat." His eyes widened, then narrowed. "Alright, here's your voice." She reconnected the lines in his brain, allowing him access to his vocal cords again.
"What the fuck did you do to me?!" he hissed. "It was so... so cold, and dark, and empty..."
"I killed you and brought you back to life. You might want to think about your life choices, if that's the afterlife you tasted." She sat by him, and his head followed her. "Now, I'm curious. Who exactly are you? What were you doing here, and who are these people you want to come with me to the corpses of the Old Gods?"
"Up yours! You may as well kill me again, you're not getting a word out of me."
Sara smirked. "We'll see about that." She held another hand at him, keeping the magic weak enough to just be a violet glow instead of green. Sara reached his hearing center and began to construct a message, made in his own voice. She also created a basic mind reading link so she could hear the response.
"What are you doing to me?!"
"Casting a truth spell," she lied. Then, in his own voice, she whispered to his mind, 'Oh no. She'll discover us with that spell!'
His mind did the rest. 'Unless I can lie by omission. I can't tell her a lie, but I don't have to tell her it's the Twilight's Hammer.'
Her heartrate sped up a bit. The Twilight's... oh. She'd gotten herself into some deep trouble, hadn't she? Still, she could play off of that. After all, there was a decent chance they didn't know about her magic, and she could lie about what she wanted from the expedition.
"Well well well," she whispered. "What do we have here? The Twilight's Hammer."
"How did you - "
"I lied about the truth spell. How dumb do you think I am?" she asked, looking at him condescendingly. Sara looked over to her windows; the curtains had been drawn, but there was still moonlight pouring through. "Twilight's Hammer. Now isn't that something? Finally come crawling out of the woodwork like the cockroaches you are. But... I'm a forgiving woman, whoever you are. Truth be told we can help each other. Tell me, do you know why I wish to research the Old Gods?"
"Your posters tell enough. If you succeed in your mission you'll give this fleeting world more tools to use against our masters. Admirable attempt, but foolish."
"Right, that's a lie. I admit the Old Gods are a... concern to my wellbeing, but it's hardly the primary motivation. First, I just needed a poorly researched topic for my Archmage thesis. Nothing really philanthropist about that. Second, I don't have human magic." She held up her left hand, glowing with an orb of purple, green and black power. She made a figure eight that left a trail of dark mist. "My magical signature was under heavier security than most, but I got my hands on it. Did you know that I have the same exact -" Not really 'exact' but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "- magic as the faceless ones?" His eyes went wide in surprise. "Yes, very curious, don't you think?"
"How do you have the power of the-them?" he asked, shaking.
"I don't know." She climbed over him, face to face. "But I intend to figure out. Now, how about a little quid pro quo, hmm? The original funding I requested was one hundred thousand gold, more or less. But I only got eighty five thousand gold to fund this journey. In that missing fourteen thousand eight hundred seventy two is what I need for my personal research. Figure out what my link is to the Old Gods. Hey, maybe I can even get the favor of the fifth, then I won't exactly need to worry about turning in my research." He was eating it up, she could tell by how intently he looked at her as she continued speaking. "So tell me, how hard would it be for you to get me my fifteen grand, in exchange for your underlings hitching a ride to Silithus? I don't really care about the people coming with me, they're just there to make my journey easier." She winked. "Might be nice to have a conversation with someone who understands."
She pulled away and let him think. "It... would not be difficult. My contractor is a member of Stormwind's business elite -" And one of them was in the Hammer? Oh dear. She'd have to mind-control someone into giving his identity. "- so fifteen thousand is something he can part with for the Masters. And you truly have the power of the Old Gods themselves?"
"I brought you back from the dead, separated your mind and body, read your thoughts, and implanted some of my own. Take a guess. Now, are you going to help me learn about our... mutual benefactors, or do I need to put you back to rest?" she asked with a menacing flicker of energy.
"No!" he breathed. "No, that won't be necessary. I shall deliver the message."
"Good. Tell whoever sent you that I'll be sleeping with one eye open from now on." She walked away from him and rested on the bed. "Take your precious dagger," she said as she gave him back full control over his limbs. He jerked, feeling himself over for any missing parts at the same time that Sara encased herself and her bed in a glistening green barrier. He got to his feet and scooped up his belongings. "You let yourself in, you can let yourself out. Now." She narrowed her eyes. "Get out of my sight," she spat.
He did, moving for the window and stealthily gliding out of sight. Once he was gone, Sara collapsed in her bed and held a hand to her pounding heart.
"Holy shit," she muttered to nobody in particular. "I almost died." She giggled. That had been the most exciting moments of her life! She probably shouldn't make a habit out of nearly getting murdered in her sleep, but what a rush! Then she frowned. "The Twilight's Hammer," she whispered, tasting the cult's name. A glance at her desk's clock confirmed it was two thirty in the morning. Looks like I've got some late night reading to do.
But on the plus side, she was getting everything she needed. Fifteen thousand more gold put her at exactly the amount needed for her expedition. Now she could reach the Old Gods and finally, finally figure out what was wrong with her shadow magic. Though she'd also be bringing members of the Twilight's Hammer in proximity to C'Thun. Last time that happened they nearly revived the Old God.
Eh. She'd figure out something later. For now, she needed to read up on the Hammer.
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